iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 4h

Thanks for reading it. All the best Dave

Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

For this tiny microsecond I'm in love with being a prof again. A grad student working hard on an awesome project; an essay on Tim Robinson coming out soon; an essay on being a granddad coming out soon. And field work in the Inishkeas on the horizon with a photographer whose work I love. Wadda life

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

About 60% of the academics I know are not strenuous readers. More than the average population but not enough to convince me that the academy will be much help in ensuring that the ongoing process of LLMs swallowing up universities quickly will fail.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Maybe just one more year full time at DePaul but today was a little intoxicating: a morning of presentations of thesis proposals, an afternoon for a master's thesis defense of a really exciting project. Won't be easy to give up.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

"Oh but Joyce would have loved AI." Fuck off with that nonsense

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Also: “An absolute must read!!!! Beautifully written with such descriptive and imaginative language.” "This needs to be a HBO series" (that's my quote). Good summer beach read if your summer is on an Irish beach under drizzle.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

It's probably time for you to order a copy of my novel 'Through Pleated Light' for a friend. “A magical landscape at once familiar and fantastical... stimulative flora, attentive fauna, giants, and even a murderously contemptuous tree.”

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

They called it Flash Fiction but that's not a term I would ever use

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Had occasion to stumble on this today. Memories of Irish Birdsong: Memories of Irish Birdsong @irishlittimes.bsky.social @irishtimes.com www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

irishtimes.com

Memories of Irish Birdsong

A flash fiction by the author of ‘Beasts at Bedtime’

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Tip for contemporary screenwriting: something happens, then something else, then something bad happens, then all is fine, then something unexpected happens, then something ominous, then everything is fine, then something very very bad happens, then the cops show up. It's nighttime, the sirens fade.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

Lol. That's exactly how I teach. Retiring soon so maybe that model dies with my generation. But maybe not.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Sorry to still be on such an Artemis high: but the coming launches will be transformative for the tiny generation now watching.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

NASA's #artemis mission is going to inject extra excitement into the lives of kids growing up in these coming years. My granddaughter was so excited all day.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

For what it's worth I think it's useful to ask the sort of questions posed in the article. One should always want to sharpen the blade of protest: I've been to all iterations if these #nokings events and though it's nice to be with fellow "concerned citizens" they feel diffuse.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

Son Fiacha (a luthier) in a very fun documentary on making a violin: youtu.be/hlntxsynqqw?...

youtu.be

Building a Violin from Scratch

YouTube video by Rob Scallon

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Every morning the dreamer wakes with an entire new mythology of the world at their disposal. And with a yawn, a stretch, a brushing of teeth, it is shrugged away — never to guide, as mythology should, the direction of the day or of subsequent life.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

(Partly inspired by people going to see Saussure lecturing in Geneva, but there's lots of precedents).

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Micro idea: I'd like to see university's offer lectures to the public. The great unwashed could get a book of 10 tix for lectures. Certain classes would designate "open house" days. There is, I think, magic in the university classroom that's difficult to replicate elsewhere.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Killarney, Co. Kerry having a big night at the #Oscars. Jessie Buckley's win followed by Michael Fassbender on the stage to announce the best picture!

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

By my calculation I have 500 books that I can possibly read before I keel over. And probably from a relatively restricted range of genres. And since I mainly reread these days I'd say 150 tops new books. So every single selection matters. This is what I'm reading rn

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

On a (Mrs H) whim we went to see Sirāt (2025) a French-Spanish film by Óliver Laxe. I'm endlessly grateful that films like this still get made

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Come on now. I think dyeing the river is disrespectful. All the others can, usually are respectfully (and pleasantly) done. I'm not especially trying to convince you of anything, just offering an (outraged) perspective. The river will be dyed, vomit will be expelled, St Paddy's day will proceed.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Safety is not my main concern. The objection is at the level of dare I say the sacred. The river has been desecrated long enough: stop treating it like a plaything for trivial amusement

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

I will say I've been consistent - and perhaps not all that solitary - in my loathing of it. The river is not a plaything to daub with dye. I'm not likely to convince many right now but I suspect we'll look back at this and be mortified

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Let the annual hiberno-insult to the Chicago river begin. Can't describe to you how much I loathe the dying of the river green. Is it for this that St Patrick sacrificed himself? #PaddyDay

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

When I find it I'll set it on my desk and fully intend to read it, maybe tomorrow.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

In the pocket of a jacket in a closet, or hung at the back of a chair, or stored in the basement — or perhaps in the luggage used on a long-ago flight — is the book I'm searching for, the book that might shape the thought I'm presently trying to complete.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Will universities rise to this challenge? No, of course not. In this manifesto I will blah, blah, blah

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

But the age of the human-as-widget may already be ending. As humans become increasingly unnecessary to the economy, education that supports each individual in becoming intensely—idiosyncratically, ethically, and aesthetically—human becomes paramount.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Universities will respond to their current crises by continuing to transform pedagogy into a process of human widget-making.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Steve - it's been too long since we caught up. I hope all is well

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

I now suspect something similar is going on with books: biblionesia, where many students (and adults in general) forget their former love of reading.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

A few years ago I coined the term toponesia for the loss of connection — a place-forgetfulness — that many notice later in life, compared with the fierceness of attachment in childhood.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

She'd brought it down to wash. It was "soiled", is that the word?

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

In fairness to me I think we have very different definitions of what constitutes "dirty" clothes

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Helpfully and neatly folded Mrs H's laundry while she was on the treadmill. Later, holding me in a steady gaze, she grabbed the basket and headed to the laundry room. "They're dirty" she muttered.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Turns out that many of my closest friends have odd ideas about masturbators, and suicide. What are you gonna do as the kids say...

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Jesus. I can only imagine. In the past I've been skeptical of canvassers, but this guy was like a laser on my interests.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

However, if she's not a regular Kant reader that's forgivable. But the conversation with Gabriel (philosophy at Northwestern) was pleasant and convincing.

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

I had a great doorstep conversation with a youthful philosopher campaigning for @katmabu.bsky.social yesterday. Our chat kept veering off to discussions of Kant, climate change, local park maintenance, mutual aid, and community politics. If these fall under the umbrella of Kat's politics I'm in!

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Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Columbo as Socrates, sure — but argumentatively he’s Darwin: pressing into the most difficult objections to his theory, often feigning that they are decisive blows to his thinking, but deftly swatting them away. Yes, natural selection is the opportunity, the motive, and the weapon.

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